A desperate staff shortage has thrown Guildford's postal service into chaos. With more than 100 vacancies, customers and workers alike are sharing the burden as the mountain of post gets bigger.

Royal Mail area manager Richard Smith is appealing to the unemployed to fill the 30 vacancies available in Guildford's Royal Mail delivery centre, where staff numbers are normally more than 200.

Additionally, the GU post code area needs 70 more employees, full and part-time, to beef up its other departments. Recruitment campaigns are to be launched on radio and in newspapers.

The shortfall means postal workers have been overloaded with extra duties, and second daily deliveries have been abandoned. There are even days, said Royal Mail press officer Valerie Goodchild, when no deliveries are made on some rounds, "though they are our priority".

One postal worker claimed: "On Friday, nine rounds remained in the office undelivered. The following day 16 rounds remained in the office, meaning that a total of 6,000 homes in the Guildford area did not receive any mail."

Ms Goodchild, speaking for Mr Smith, who was away for the week on administrative training, said: "We definitely need to get some more staff to give the customers the service they expect."

Another postal worker said: "Management is part of the problem. We are doing the best job that we can to perform. It is them (the management) who are messing up by not having enough staff and not managing in a competent way." The worker feared for his job after speaking out.

Ms Goodchild blamed a competitive job-market as the prime factor behind the understaffing. A low unemployment rate in Surrey, one of the richest counties in the country, and the Royal Mail's standardised wage rates that pay little heed to local economics, had triggered the situation, she said.

Andy Moorey, local secretary of the Communication Workers' Union (CWU), agreed with Ms Goodchild's assessment, saying: "Competition is fierce and there is a recruitment problem in the area."

This is despite a recently negotiated agreement between the CWU and the Royal Mail, which includes higher rates of pay, increased holidays and improved training. Not wishing to comment directly on management in the Guildford, area office, Mr Moorey said: "Some of them (the postal workers) work under some pretty difficult conditions. There are problems that need to be addressed."

This "state of chaos", as one of the postal workers described it, allegedly includes "general procedural failures", such as overloaded sorting and delivery schedules and poor intra-organisation communications.

Ms Goodchild refuted the accusations of deficient administration, adding: "We have a well established communication process in place continuing day in and day out all over the country, including in the Guildford area."